One problem if you are a budding mobile Operating System no matter how awesome you are is the problem of getting all those popular, essential apps to the platform. This will become increasingly difficult if you plan to survive in a market that has become largely bipolar. As of now, iOS and Android dominate the smartphones space leaving little room for anyone else in the space. Awesome platforms like Windows Phone from Microsoft and of late, the BlackBerry 10 from BlackBerry (formerly RIM) are great out of the box. However, being great out of the box isn’t enough anymore. Both Android and iOS have managed to garner a number of users who use the respective platforms not only for their capabilities, but also for their apps. Apps are important. No doubt.
It is therefore very essential that any platform planning to take the (smartphones) world by storm ought to have all the popular apps in their kitty. That seems to be lacking in the case of both Windows Phone and now BlackBerry 10. But it is not right to blame the manufacturers alone. Developers are equally responsible and from their viewpoint, it does not make sense to invest in a platform that most people do not use.
Anyway, the reason why we are talking all about this is that the popular image editing and sharing app Instagram is rumored to be NOT considering arriving on the BlackBerry 10 platform. Not at least in the near future. This has been reported by the usually trusty AllThingsD. A similar report was published by VentureBeat back in October – way before BlackBerry 10 was announced. “There will be no [native] Instagram for BB10 for now,” an unnamed source familiar with the matter told AllThingsD. “Frankly, I’m not sure there will ever be.”
The non availability of popular Apps on a budding platform is seen as a major hurdle in it becoming popular and to expect Instagram which was until recently exclusive only to iOS to arrive on BlackBerry 10 is asking for too much.
That said, BlackBerry has managed to rope in other app developers and have designed native apps for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. However having these basic apps alone isn’t enough.
